1. Technical Field
The described embodiments pertain to managing sensor usage by a mobile device, and in particular to selecting when to use particular sensors to reduce associated costs.
2. Description of Related Art
A variety of applications and systems currently exist that use location data collected from a mobile device to provide location-aware functionality. Location-awareness is useful for a wide range of systems. Location-aware systems typically identify the user's current geo-spatial location using a location-determination sensor and compare this location to a database to predict a venue or area that the user is currently at or near. For example, a weather application can provide pertinent information about the city the user is currently in, a navigation system can offer to provide directions to near-by venues that the user has previously visited, a marketing system can provide advertisements for venues similar to those the user frequents, and the like.
Many modern mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets include a large number of sensors capable of collecting a wide array of data of varying types. A typical smartphone includes a GPS positioning sensor, a microphone, a camera, and an accelerometer. Each of these sensors has various costs associated with using it, such as battery usage, processing time, data storage, bandwidth, and user annoyance/disruption. These costs can reduce the usefulness of applications that make use of such sensors. In existing systems, such costs can be alleviated by turning off sensors, but this reduces the amount of data available to applications, which reduces their value and can even render them inoperative.